Suggested resources

for use in searching.

General help

These resources represent all the resources cited within this guidance, grouped by category and within those alphabetically. All are freely available or accessible via NHS OpenAthens accounts unless otherwise stated with “(££)” or a note.

If you require access to a resource for which your Trust does not have a subscription, an email request to colleagues via the HEALTHILL list may help. If you would like advice from colleagues on your search strategy etc., consider an email to the JISCMAIL lists (see “Appendix 3… Mailing list enquiries”).

For further resources and help formulating a search strategy, please see eLearning for Healthcare’s How to Search the Literature Effectively at and Thames Valley, Wessex and South West healthcare librarians’ guidance The Literature Search Process: Guidance for NHS Researchers. 

For alternative tools to help you searching, there is Tony Russel-Rose’s 2Dsearch which can help you visualise your search concepts and construct a strategy graphically.

The Kent Surrey and Sussex Searching and Training Forum’s wiki is also a good source for general searching help at , as is NHSE’s Knowledge for Healthcare blog.

The Peer Review of Electronic Search Strategies (PRESS) 2015 Guideline Evidence-Based Checklist is intended to guide peer review, but is a useful aide-memoire for when you are searching.

The University of Cambridge Medical Library website features help guides for many of the databases and platforms included:

UX Caucus Database Tips offers “Bite-size tips for expert searchers”.  It is regularly updated by the User Experience Caucus of the Medical Library Association.

See the Supplement for examples of each type of search covered in this guidance.

Search strategies

Get existing search strategies (or “strings”/”blocks” – elements of search strategies) that you could copy and adapt for your own searches:

  • search your evidence search tracking system platform (KnowledgeShare or CISS) or your local repository of evidence searches, to see if there are existing searches you can copy/adapt
  • Library of Search Strategy Resources (LSSR) is a “living freely available resource for anyone sourcing and developing search strategies for healthcare topics” 
  • The Searching and Training Forums Wiki (formerly the Kent Surrey and Sussex Searching and Training Forum Wiki) contains search blocks/strings you can include in your searches
  • searchRxiv - a database of search strategies
  • See the search filters section.

NHS Knowledge Hub

The Hub is designed to connect staff and learners seamlessly to a range of high-quality knowledge and evidence resources all in one place. It brings together national core content and locally procured resources including, for many users, local print holdings via an integrated library management system.

The semantic search and ranking algorithm mean that the portal provides an excellent starting point for quick searches.

The best starting point for a KLHub search is your local instance. However, all users can log on from library.nhs.uk/knowledgehub by selecting “start your search” and logging in with their NHS OpenAthens account via the yellow bar at the top of the next screen.

Beware that a search of the KLHub alone does not constitute an in-depth search, and you will need to go beyond this tool to retrieve comprehensive results.

Help and support

These resources are suggested for searches requiring information about the NHS Knowledge Hub:

Standards and guidance

These resources are suggested for searches requiring you to find standards or guidance:

Royal colleges, societies and academies

Clinical decision support tools

These resources are suggested for searches requiring information from clinical decision support tools:

High tier evidence sources

These resources are suggested for searches requiring information from high tier evidence sources:

Trip Pro is now freely available to all NHS staff. Access is granted via IP address for all users on NHS networks, and via NHS OpenAthens username/password when accessed via the KLHub).